The Witness on PS4: New Development Details

The Witness is a game where you explore an abandoned island and solve puzzles. We’ve been working on this game for a long time (It’s been more than five years since I began working on it, myself! The rest of the team joined at various times after that.). We don’t know the release date yet; it’s still officially “when it’s done,” but these days “when it’s done” is getting closer and closer. The Witness is an ambitious game with a lot of things for us to get right, and getting it right takes time; I don’t want to rush the game out at the cost of quality.

Here are some of the things we’ve been working on lately:

Design. All the gameplay along the “main line” of the game — the stuff you would expect to do from the beginning to the end of a standard playthrough — is done. But, this is a game that has a lot of extra things for players who are really into the game and want more; we’re still designing some of those extras.

Modeling and texturing. The Witness has a lot of different locations, and it’s very important that they all receive the same degree of care. Most of the island where The Witness takes place is fully modeled at this point, but there are a few important locations that are still in a draft stage, and several others that could use another pass of detail.

Frame rate optimizations. At launch on PS4, we’re planning to render at 1080p and 60 frames per second. Right now we meet this target in many areas of the game, but not everywhere. But with more old-fashioned hard work, we should be.

Level-of-detail management and streaming. For example, making sure that it doesn’t take too long to stream in new parts of the world as you move. When we do stream in higher-detail versions of far-away geometry, we don’t want the graphics to pop, so we’ve recently implemented a smooth blend between LOD levels. The Witness is an open-world game with no loading screens; the feeling of just walking around and looking at things is very important. We work hard to make this happen as smoothly as possible.

Audio. Since The Witness is so much about a sense of place, the audio design is crucial. Right now there are 1.2 gigabytes of sound (Much of it compressed!) in the game, which represents over 40% the game’s data.

This last statement about the audio made me curious about what our data looks like, so here are some numbers on how much data is in The Witness. (These are all the size of files in the game as it would be shipped, not the source files!)

41 Comments

I have been dying to play this game. It has been one of the titles at the top of my PS4 upcoming games list. It’s always frustrating when we, as consumers, have to wait to play games but I completely understand why Mr. Blow and his team are taking their time.

I would much rather have a complete and well functioning game than a rushed out one that isn’t the best it can be. I’ll be looking forward to more updates and the release of the game! :)

First, I’d like to say thank you for such a great post here. Many of us appreciated these insights and few people would even think to share them. I can see that you really care about this project, and that is going to translate into an amazing experience for the people who will experience it once it’s released.
The Witness has been high on my radar since I first saw screenshots of it, before PS4 was even announced. This is one of my most anticipated PS4 games and I patiently await this masterpiece. :)

Jonathan, thanks for posting this update!! I’m such a huge fan of Braid (originally on Xbox, but re-purchased it on PS3 in the recent flash sale for a fresh playthru.)
I eagerly await The Witness “when it’s done”. Take your time, and keep up the great work!

It looks like a colorful modern gaming version of what myst was. I am sure that is a major influence for him.

#7 saying he seems pretentious and everyone getting uppity about it may not have heard him speak on a number of occasions or read his comments on his and other games. He is not really like someone like Molineux though who is charismatic and chronically overpromises and under delivers. If you want to look at some of the videos of Blow for E3 or on gametrailers, that speaks for itself. I really don’t care what he is like as a person, I say let his games speak for themselves same for other divisive personalities like Fez creator Phil Fish. I can’t stand the guy, but his game is interesting.

Frankly he is a bit odd, but that has no bearing on whether his games are good or enjoyable to play, this one looks like it has a lot of promise. It would not surprise me for this to be a Project Morpheus game, whether at the outset or a version packed in with the vr set. Time will tell. Good luck and please offer a demo I like to try things for myself. If it is 19.99 I will really be hesitant but it could very well be worth that and more. I will watch for it at E3.

I have Braid and think it is an interesting game. I am interested to see what Mr. Blow does with this one as he seems to make thinking games, which I like. I think saying he is a bit odd is not exactly what I meant to say, but I cannot edit posts on here so will instead say he has seemed socially reserved / out of place. It must be difficult to be thrust into the public eye on E3 and on gaming shows like Bonus Round on Gametrailers. In any case, I don’t mean to be offensive and really the games will speak for themselves. He strikes me as a perfectionist, which is likely why the games take so long to be released, I am happy with better quality though so will keep The Witness on my radar.

This look so good. I can’t wait to immerse myself this title. Thanks for the update, take your time and polish it! I’m a patient gamer. I remember writing letters to NIntendo Power and waiting years for releases. This young gamers are too privileged nowadays.

Good to know that the game development is progressing smoothly. I can’t wait to play it.
I guess I need a proper sound rig to enjoy the game, it looks like you gave huge importance to the sound desing.

Thanks for the update and good luck for the rest.
I hope for the next time we’ll have a new footage … and why not a release date (and a price).

@22/23 Skeetlejuice: very nice but pretty sure we all know you’re not trying to be offensive, unlike the frequent offender/commenter that you and others have pointed out. Most really innovative people seem odd, meaning not like the majority of us. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, even my sensei Steve Jobs, all sound pretty odd in interviews sometimes. That’s cool.

This has had my attention since it was announced. It kind of slipped off my radar over the last year with all the other game information being shoved in my face, so thank you for this very detailed post, reminding me that this little piece of awesome is still coming out. Will definitely be there day one to purchase this.

I’m glad to hear that audio asset size is not being compromised. Does this mean the assets are mostly 24-bit FLAC?

It’s cool that 1080p @ 60hz is being targeted, but will the game support stereoscopic 3D on 3D televisions at 1080p/60hz as well? Playing Dartura on PS3 in 3D was awesome, and more exploration-based 3D+Move games on PS4 would be fantastic!

Really looking forward to this, and I hope there’s a pre-order on PSN soon!

I know it’s the lowest of priorities, but I wanna’ add a vote for stereoscopic 3D support along with #13 (above).

The market just collectively decided “3D’s not a thing anymore!” like 2 years ago and STOPPED SUPPORTING IT. I’m sitting here with 3D glasses, 3D Blu-Rays and the very best stereoscopic game in the world – Shadow of the Colossus HD. :) If you can implement a side-by-side stereoscopic camera (2D output), my display will blend the views together. You’re still just rendering at 1080p. The framerate does not have to be perfect. I just want to be immersed in this game as much as possible and 3D HELPS a ton. :{

This is my very post on the Playstation Blog, and its to say that this game looks not only very promising, but absolutely amazing and well worth the wait. I look forward to hearing this on my 7.1 surround sound and high def television.